BACK TO THE BUGS

Apparently, it feels like Halloween.

It’s 78 and humid, with a cool breeze blowing through the oaks, and weak Florida sunshine trying to break through the heavy branches. Birds are shooting calls out like tiny spears, like chugging motors, like throaty croaking toads. The cicadas supply the constant bass that pulls this wild symphony together.

My clicky clackety keyboard feels like an affront, disturbing the peace of this gorgeous autumn morning.

I am home, and I am very warm.

As the temperature makes its steady decline into the 10s (Celcius) back in Steeple, I’m overjoyed that the days here are hot, the evenings are buggy, and the mornings are glorious.

It was the longest I’ve been away from home, and while I was gone it was like a vice grip tightening. Now that I’m back, it’s like I never left.

I caught the last summer storm just as I arrived to Florida, and since I’ve been back, I’ve helped my dad renew his passport, and set up two apps on his phone.

I spent hours on the bow of my aunt and uncle’s boat, staring at the clouds billowing and erupting in gorgeous shapes over the Florida Bay. I snorkeled with Baraccuda and big-mouth Grouper, and swam through millions of microscopic baby fish.

I laid in the driveway with my best friend, under the spotlight of the Harvest Moon; we talked into the wee hours of the morning. It felt like 2016.

I’ve read and basked in the sun and mowed…a lot. New ideas have risen like bubbles to the top of my mind, and I’ve been working like a fiend to foster them all.

I’m home, for a bit. It smells like heat and sunshine and bahiagrass. I’m breathing deeply and holding it all very tight.

Lau xx

I SAID OUI

Sisters Tyne